Jail Birds
by writer writing
Summary: Lois and Clark spend New Year's Eve in jail.
1. Chapter 1

Clark was working on a crossword puzzle. He was trying to figure out a 5 letter word for a communication device when the phone rang.

"Of course," he said out loud, "it's phone. That was so easy, it was hard."

He filled out the word in super speed and answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Get your mother on the phone!"

"Lois, is that you?"

"No, Smallville. It's the first lady. Get your mom!"

"Actually, the first lady has called here before."

"Would you quit playing around and get Mrs. Kent for crying out loud!"

"I'm not playing around and Mom had to go to the governor's New Year's party, remember?"

"Shoot! How could I have forgotten that?"

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I only get one phone call, so listen carefully. Tell your mom to go to Troutsville as soon as possible. Tell her I'm in the corner building on Main Street. It's the only brick building there and make sure she brings her pocketbook."

"What's going on?"

"It's none of your beeswax. You'll just laugh at me and I'll never live it down—I'm hurrying, Barnaby Jones."

"If you don't tell me, Lois, I'll just find out anyway. I promise I won't laugh."

"Don't you have any New Year's plans?"

"Not really. Now what's this big secret?"

"Fine," she said with a sigh. "Nothing stays secret in a small community anyway. I might as well tell you and get it over with…I was arrested."

"For what?"

"Speeding."

Clark covered his chuckling with coughing but the sound wasn't lost on Lois.

"Go ahead and laugh at my expense, and for your information, I was only going 5 miles over the speed limit."

"So you need someone to bail you out?"

"Yes, Clark."

"I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Don't go too fast. You can get arrested for that. Isn't that right, sheriff?"

"I'll keep that in mind. See you in a little bit."

"Okay, bye."

Clark was still laughing, when he got in the truck. It was a 10 minute drive to Troutsville from Smallville. Lois was going to owe him big time for freeing her. He thought about all the different ways he could use it against her. Blackmail was nice to think about but not very practical. Lois wouldn't go for that and he was too kind to do it to her. He wasn't too kind to use it in their arguments. He thought of a lot of jail jokes and comebacks on the way there.


	2. Chapter 2

The jail was tinier than tiny. It only had one cell. Clark saw Lois sitting on the bed. Her arms were folded and she looked ready to kill somebody. He smiled at her and he heard her growl. The sheriff was sitting at the desk. He was a middle aged man, who looked very stubborn and set in his ways. He seemed a little disappointed to see Clark there. He must not get very many prisoners or excitement. The town was smaller than Smallville.

"Sheriff, sir, I've got the money to bail her out."

"I suppose I'll have to let her out then, but before I do, listen to me, young people. I better not catch you two going one tenth of a mile over the speed limit. Driving is a mighty dangerous business."

"Yes, sir," Clark replied.

The sheriff stood up and then grinned as he looked outside the window.

"What do you see?" asked Clark, not liking the look of that grin.

"I see you backed into your space."

"Since when did it matter whether you parked forwards or backwards into a space?"

"Since you came into Troutsville city limits and had to uphold its laws. I'm afraid I'll have to keep you in here with the young woman until Wednesday, ya'll's trial day. The judge is on vacation."

"This is crazy. You're locking us up for driving violations? That's rather harsh."

"You and your dirty-mouthed girlfriend-"

"She's not my girlfriend!" said Clark at the same time as Lois said, "My language isn't that dirty!" and then she added, "unless somebody makes me angry."

"Tempers, tempers," said the sheriff. "Maybe some time in the slammer will cool the both of you off."

He took Clark and led him to the cell.

"You can't put him in here with me!" Lois said. "You haven't even read him his rights."

"Thank you for reminding me, Miss Lane, or this arrest might not've been legal," the sheriff said. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you at government expense."

He put Clark in the cell.

Lois stood up and said, "What about his phone call? He gets to make a call!"

"And he will make one just as soon as I get back from Pearl's Restaurant. It's right across the street, so don't try any monkey business. Escaping will only make your charges worse."

"Please, can't you take him with you? I'm sure Clark's hungry."

"If you two behave yourselves, I might bring you back a roll."

"Why don't you just give me the chair?" Lois asked, sarcastically.

"Don't be ridiculous," the sheriff said, "Kansas hasn't executed anybody in a long time and if we did, we would use injections. Unfortunately, your crimes aren't serious enough for that."

"I was just joking," Lois said in disbelief.

The sheriff left.

"See what you've gotten us into, Smallville?"

"Me?"


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm betting you didn't leave your mom a note."

"I didn't think I'd need to."

She rolled her eyes.

"You should be thanking me. I didn't have to come down here. If somebody could keep their big mouth shut and didn't have a lead foot…"

"For goodness sakes, I was going 30 mph in a 25 mile speed zone. If I knew I was going to be arrested, I would've gone the whole 9 yards and went 110."

"See that's your problem. It'd never enter your mind to go slower."

"Well, you're not exactly a law-abiding citizen yourself, buddy."

"It was a law I didn't know existed. In driving school, they tell you backing into a space is safest!" he took a deep breath and said, "I think we need to calm down."

"I guess so. As scary as this sounds, we're all each other has right now. I feel like banging my head against the wall. I hate feeling locked up. I just want to pull these bars apart and fly away."

"What would that solve? You'd be on the run for a speeding ticket."

"I guess it's a good thing I don't have those powers then because I'd do first and think later."

She sat back down on the bed, while Clark leaned up against the wall.

"I was supposed to meet Ollie for our own New Year's celebration. He's going to think I ditched him. Gosh, why didn't it occur to me to call him?"

Clark got a hurt look on his face.

"I didn't mean it that way. He's just got more influence and he'd know where I was at."

"We should figure out who I'm going to call."

"Not a lawyer."

"Why not? It's looking like our best chance."

"You should call Chloe. Lawyers are all a bunch of lying scum."

"Not all lawyers but maybe you're right about calling Chloe. We want to keep this low profile. It would hurt Mom's political career if the press wrote that her son and chief of staff spent the night locked up together."

"Speaking of the press, I'm thinking of writing an expose on small town jails and calling it 'Every Mayberry has a Barney Fife.'"

"What we need is an Andy Griffith to let us out when he sees how absurd this charge is. I wish it was the Mayberry jail. We'd have separate and comfortable cells."

"And better yet, there'd be a key in reach," Lois said.

"I just realized something. There's no toilet in here."

"Great observation, Sherlock! I hope you have a bladder of steel. I know I do. When we went on road trips with the General, he stopped for nobody or no thing."

"There's a bathroom over there. I suppose you tell the sheriff and he takes you. I don't have to go. I just thought it might be useful information for later on."

"I should be Pollyanna and look at the bright side of things. I could be stuck in a cell with somebody named Big Bertha or I could be in an orange jumpsuit. Orange is not my best color."

"Finally, something we can agree on."

"Watch it, Kent. I'm already in jail. Why not add murder to my record? It's not like you could escape me."

They were silent for a little while.

"What were you going to do for New Year's?" Lois asked.

"Turn on the TV, watch the ball drop, and drink some eggnog."

"Don't you thing that's boring?"

"There's fireworks."

"There's fireworks on the 4th of July. If they wanted to do something interesting and different, they could use illegal fireworks that you don't get to see on the 4th. That would make a nice touch."

"Talk like that isn't going to get us out of jail any faster."

She snorted and then asked, "What about New Year's resolutions? Have any?"

"Well, I'd like to find a girlfriend."

"Not Lana, I hope."

"No, any girl would do."

"In that case,-"

"Lois!"

"How'd you know what I was going to say?"

"I've known you long enough to know how that brain of yours works. Sometimes, anyway."

"Hey, if you really want a girlfriend, I have a friend, who doesn't live too far away."

"Really?" Clark asked, distrustfully. "A friend of yours?"

"She's sweet. I think you'd like her. She's my complete opposite. We went to Metropolis High together for a year. Want me to set you up?"

"No, thank you. Friends setting other friends up never works out. Have you got any resolutions?"

"Weight loss is a traditional resolution I guess. I think I could stand to lose a couple of pounds."

"You don't need to lose weight. You're perfect the way you are." He started to blush when he saw Lois' eyebrows shoot up at the last remark.

"Thanks, I think. I wouldn't worry about it. I'll go on a health binge for a couple of weeks and then it's back to my junk food. Whoever makes it out of January with their resolutions intact?"

"Have you ever heard that whoever you're with at the stroke of midnight on New Year's is who you're destined to be with for the rest of your life?"

"Then we'd better break out of here before midnight."

"I'm serious. Do you think there's any truth to that?"

"No, it's just something a crackpot thought up, but if you're into the whole superstitions thing, it can't be a good omen that we're spending the start of the year in jail. Maybe we're destined to be criminals."

"I'm guessing this isn't the first time you've been in jail."

"You know good and well it isn't. I was arrested when that boy got paralyzed."

"I almost forgot about that. So, how many times have you been in jail?"

"None of your business. They were all phony charges except for one. I got caught drinking underage. I know this isn't the first time you've been behind bars."

"Somehow we attract false charges and trouble."

"I'm getting tired of waiting on the sheriff to come back, so you can use the phone. I wonder how much longer it's going to be?"

Clark turned around for a second, making use of his x-ray vision. "If I was a guessing person, I'd say he's just now getting his meal."

"Great, I'm going to turn in early."

She stretched out and turned over to face the wall. "Wake me up if our condition changes or something exciting happens."

"It's only 10:35. Aren't you going to ring in the new year?"

"Why? Nothing special happens. It's only a measurement of time and what are we going to do to celebrate? Jump up and down on the bed and shout 'Happy New Year!' I'll greet 2007 in the morning."

"You think we'll be in here that long and if we are, where am I going to sleep?"

"I was here first. You'll have to sleep on the cement floor, unless you want to sleep on top of me?"

"No!"

"I didn't think so. Good night, Smallville."

After about 10 minutes, Lois suddenly sat up. "Clark, if we are stuck in here until Wednesday, I came up with a brilliant idea!"

"I don't like your ideas. They're not very sane."

"No, think about this. Why do they separate men and women when they're in prison?"

"I'm afraid to ask where you're going with this."

"The sheriff will have to break us up and one of us will have to move somewhere else."

"What good will that do?"

"Ask me that again after you've spent some more time in here with me," and she laid back down and closed her eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Clark watched Lois sleep. There wasn't much else to do. He actually found her slow, deep breathing restful. Then her breathing began to get ragged and she jerked out of her sleep.

"Bad dream?" he asked.

"Yeah, I dreamed we were old and gray and still locked up in here."

"If it makes you feel any better, we would have been moved to separate prisons long before that. Jails are used before the trial and are short term. Prisons are for people serving sentences."

"How very reassuring," she said sarcastically. "So have you rethought my proposition?"

"Lois, things would never get so desperate that I would have to kiss you. You forget that unlike most people, I'm very tolerant, in fact, immune to your presence. We lived together for quite some time."

"Don't remind me. So what are we going to do if we're stuck in here together until Wednesday?"

"Grin and bare it."

The sheriff came back at last. "Sorry, I didn't bring you back any rolls. I was hungrier than I thought. Don't worry though. You'll get breakfast."

"He gets to make a phone call," Lois reminded him through gritted teeth.

"I know, I know," he said, as he took the key out of his pocket. He led Clark to the phone.

Clark called Chloe like they had decided on earlier. Unfortunately, he got her voice mail.

"Hi, Chloe. This is Clark. As soon as you get this, do you mind bailing Lois and me out of jail? We're in Troutsville. It's the only brick building on Main Street. Thanks."

Faster than a speeding bullet, the sheriff put him back in the cell with Lois. The sheriff sat down at the desk and began to flip through a book of America's most wanted.

"That went well," Lois said, clearly irritated.

"Being New Year's Eve combined with the fact that she has a boyfriend now, you can hardly expect her to be reachable. We've got roughly an hour until midnight. Maybe she'll check her voice mail before she turns in for the night."

"She's a reporter. She should never miss a call if she can help it. The person could have her next big story or lead."

"Just because you've decided to put journalism over your romance life, doesn't mean everyone else has."

"This is Chloe Sullivan we're talking about, right?"

"She really likes Jimmy Olsen. It doesn't surprise me she puts romance first. I've always thought of her as more of a romantic than a hard-nosed reporter."

"I haven't had a chance to really meet this Jimmy guy yet. What's he like?"

"From what I can tell he's very much a kid in a good sort of way. The important thing is that he makes Chloe happy."

"I have to sit down and get to know him one of these days, but right now I want to hurt him because he's distracting Chloe from answering her cell phone."

"I'm sure you'll end up liking him. He sort of grows on you."

Suddenly a very loud snore erupted from across the room.

"One thing's for sure," Lois said, "I'll never get back to sleep. He's loud enough to wake the dead!"

She stood up and began to pace around the cell, not that there was a lot of room for it. She seemed to get angrier and more anxious with each step. She was like a mad dog that had been locked up in a tiny cage. Mad Dog Lane was perfect name to describe her and Clark had to admit it had a nice ring. He was afraid of what she might do if Chloe didn't come for them in the near future.


	5. Chapter 5

"30 minutes until New Year's."

"Clark Joseph Kent, I swear if you tell me one more time how much longer it is until the new year, you won't live to see the new year!"

Clark gulped. She couldn't and wouldn't hurt him, but that didn't keep her from being intimidating and a little scary. She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and asked how much longer it was until midnight. He didn't want her to get angry when he answered her again. She was in a manic state and he wondered why she wasn't more used to it. Being in jail was sort of like a legal kidnapping, only you weren't tied up and about to die. He did the only thing he could think of to shut her up. He kissed her.

Clark thought at first that he was making a terrible sacrifice, but he actually enjoyed it. He was just as surprised when she didn't push him away. She must have been in shock. After it was over, she came to her senses and shouted, "What the heck did you do that for?"

"You said we should if we want to leave each other's company."

"While the sheriff's awake, moron! I know with his foghorn snores, you didn't forget. So why did you really kiss me?"

"You were hysterical. I had to snap you out of it."

"You slap a person. You don't kiss them."

"I'll remember to slap you next time."

"Next time, you'll keep your hands off me. Period."

Clark breathed a sigh of relief when Chloe came through the door.

"God bless you for coming, Chloe," Lois said. "Now, kick the sheriff out of his chair to wake him up."

"Don't do it, Chloe or you'll end up in here with us," Clark told her.

"Don't worry. I can handle this, guys." She looked at the nameplate on the desk. "Sheriff Harrison, Sheriff Harrison?" Chloe called.

At last, his eyes fluttered open.

"I'm here to pay their bail, sir."

Chloe managed to get them out of jail safely. Once they were outside, Chloe said, "The sheriff made me promise that you two wouldn't skip town. Can I hold you to it? Can you both drive out of town without getting arrested again?"

"Chloe," Lois said, "I've had a bad day."

"Say no more, Cuz. I know better than to incur the wrath of a Lane." She laughed. "I have to get back to the party. You're lucky I was so close by and that I checked my messages tonight. There's Jimmy waiting in the car over there."

Lois gave him a long, hard look. Jimmy saw and turned away in fear and embarrassment.

"Don't scare my boyfriend away, please," Chloe told her.

"Just checking to see if he looks like a psycho killer. I can spot them a mile off."

"That's why you're always dating them?" Clark asked.

"No, that's why I can spot them," she replied. "Have fun, Chloe."

Chloe and Jimmy left. Lois tried calling Oliver and found that he had been forced to leave on business and that they wouldn't have spent New Year's together anyway.

"So Smallville, what are you going to do now?"

"I was planning on going home and getting into bed. Why?"

"We've still got 20 minutes until the new year. We could go to this bar not too far away. They have a wrestling match between the old and new year. One guy dresses like an old man and will have a 2006 sash. The other will dress like a baby and has a 2007 sash. It's very predictable. The new year always wins, but it's funny."

"Promise that you won't drink?"

"It's a bar."

He crossed his arms.

"Fine. We'll order cokes. Follow me in my car," she said, as she led him by the arm to his car.

The sheriff shut the blinds he had been looking out through and shook his head. "They were lying about not being boyfriend and girlfriend. Those jail birds are also a couple of love birds."

The End

Have a Happy New Year!


End file.
